Graft: CBI gets 2-day remand of cops

A local court on Thursday granted the Central Bureau Investigation’s request for two-day custodial interrogation of police station house officer Rajesh Shukla, who was arrested on graft charges along with head constable Mukesh Kumar and constable Dilbaj Singh.

chandigarhUpdated: Sep 05, 2014 13:44 IST

HT Correspondent Hindustan Times

A local court on Thursday granted the Central Bureau Investigation’s request for two-day custodial interrogation of police station house officer Rajesh Shukla, who was arrested on graft charges along with head constable Mukesh Kumar and constable Dilbaj Singh.

Hinting at the involvement of other police officials, the agency had earlier moved an application seeking four-day remand of the three cops, all of them posted at the Sector 34 police station, who were nabbed on Wednesday while accepting Rs 10,000 in bribe from a parking contractor.

‘Bribe money meant for others’The CBI had sought the remand to question Shukla, who was placed under suspension after his arrest, alleging Kumar and Dilbaj used to collect bribes every month on Shukla’s behalf from contractors and shop owners in the area under his jurisdiction. In the remand application the agency said its preliminary investigations had revealed the bribe money seized was meant to be distributed to other cops whose names had yet to be ascertained. The agency claimed Shukla had amassed several properties in his name as well as those that were ‘benami’ (held in the name of another person) through illegal means. The defence counsels said: “Since the application doesn’t contain any allegations about assets disproportionate to known sources of income, Shukla should be sent to judicial custody.”

Defence suspects voice recordings tamperedShukla was represented by a battery of lawyers who strongly sought dismissal of the remand plea for recording Shukla’s voice samples, claiming that voice samples might be tampered with.

‘Shukla owns properties in HP’According to the CBI, documents seized from Shukla’s home showed he had bought properties in Dharamsala and Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh. The agency said during their investigations sleuths found documents of bank saving accounts in the name of Shukla and his family members with deposits of about Rs 20 lakh.

Court room jam-packedOver a 100 police personnel, including many Inspectors of the UT Police, SIs, and advocates gathered in the court for the case hearing. However, they refrained from entering the court room.